Through air drying has become the technology of preference for making tissue for many manufacturers who build new tissue machines as, on balance, through air drying ("TAD") offers many economic benefits as compared to the older technique of conventional wet-pressing ("CWP"). With through air drying, it is possible to produce a single ply tissue with good initial softness and bulk as it leaves the tissue machine.
In the older wet pressing method, to produce a premium quality tissue, it has normally been preferred to combine two plies by embossing them together. In this way, the rougher air-side surfaces of each ply may be joined to each other and thereby concealed within the sheet. However, producing two-ply products, even on state of the art CWP machines, lowers paper machine productivity by about 20% as compared to a one-ply product. In addition, there may be a substantial cost penalty involved in the production of two-ply products because the parent rolls of each ply are not always of the same length, and a break in either of the single plies forces the operation to be shut down until it can be remedied. Also, it is not normally economic to convert older CWP tissue machines to TAD. But even though through air drying has often been preferred for new machines, conventional wet pressing is not without its advantages as well. Water may normally be removed from a cellulosic web at lower energy cost by mechanical means such as by overall compaction than by drying using hot air.
What has been needed in the art is a method of making a premium quality single ply tissue using conventional wet pressing having a high bulk and excellent softness attributes. In this way advantages of each technology could be combined so older CWP machines can be used to produce high quality single ply tissue at a cost which is far lower than that associated with producing two-ply tissue.
Among the more significant barriers to the production of a single ply CWP tissue have been the generally low softness, thinness and the extreme sidedness of single ply webs. A tissue product's softness can be increased by lowering its strength, as it is known that softness and strength are inversely related. However, a product having very low strength will present difficulties in manufacturing and will be rejected by consumers as it will not hold up in use. Use of premium, low coarseness fibers, such as eucalyptus, and stratification of the furnish so that the premium softness fibers are on the outer layers of the tissue is another way of addressing the low softness of CWP products; however this solution is expensive to apply, both in terms of equipment and ongoing fiber costs. In any case, neither of these schemes addresses the problem of thinness of the web. TAD processes employing fiber stratification can produce a nice, soft, bulky sheet having adequate strength and good similarity of the surface texture on the front of the sheet as compared to the back. Having the same texture on front and back is considered to be quite desirable in these products or, more precisely, having differing texture is generally considered quite undesirable. Because of the deficiencies mentioned above, many single-ply CWP products currently found in the marketplace are typically low end products. These products often are considered deficient in thickness, softness, and exhibit excessive two sidedness. Accordingly, these products have had rather low consumer acceptance and are typically used in "away from home" applications in which the person buying the tissue is not the user.
We have found that we can produce a soft, high basis weight, high strength CWP tissue with low sidedness having a serpentine configuration by judicious combination of several techniques as described herein. Basically, these techniques fall into four categories: (i) providing a web having a basis weight of at least 15 pounds for each 3,000 square foot ream; (ii) adding to the web a controlled amount of a temporary wet strength agent and softener/debonder; (iii) low angle, high percent crepe, high adhesion creping giving the product low stiffness and a high stretch; and (iv) optionally embossing the tissue. By various combinations of these techniques as described, taught, and exemplified herein, it is possible to almost "dial in" the required degree of softness, strength, and sidedness depending upon the desired goals. The use of softeners having a melting range of about 1.degree.-40.degree. C. and being dispensable at a temperature of about 1.degree.-100.degree. C. suitably 1.degree.-40.degree. C. preferably 20.degree.-25.degree. C. further improves the properties of the novel one-ply tissue having a serpentine configuration.